HYDERABAD: Nigerian drug peddler Chukwu Ogbonna David alias Tony, the kingpin of one of the major international drug rackets who was arrested by Telangana police from Mumbai, was grilled for eight hours by Punjagutta police and Task Force personnel on Sunday.
During the second day of investigation, the police and Task Force teams found that Tony never maintained a bank account. When his main agent Noor used to deliver the drug parcels, they used to deal only in liquid cash. Other accused Imran had an account with Western Union Bank though in he used deposit the money, leave the city and withdraw the same in Mumbai before handing over the amount to Tony, to paid in the form of commissions.
A senior official privy to the investigation informed said that a phone, comprising 2 TB of information, may disclose details that will help in taking the case forward. The data reportedly has information like contacts and transactional details.
As the Police Commissioner stated a couple of days ago, the phones are being analysed but it is taking more time than expected to retrieve deleted conversations and other necessary details. It is also learnt that the mobile phones were sent to a forensic lab in Mumbai. Sources also said that this analysis will help the police to understand how the NRIs used to contact Tony.
During their investigation, police reportedly asked Tony if he used to supply drugs for the rave parties too. It may be mentioned here that police busted a series of rave parties during the last one year and during the lockdowns and recovered drugs. But it is yet to be established if Tony supplied any to those drugs.
Meanwhile, a city court rejected Punjagutta police’s request to grant custody of the nine accused and referred plea to the High Court,. which will be heard on Monday. Police has to confirm if all the nine accused will be brought in together for the investigation or will be divided into batches.
Accused Niranjan Jain and Shashwat Jain as well as Ashok Jain, who is on the run, are acquainted to each other while the connection between the rest is yet to be established. Venkat Chalasani remains a mystery as he is an NRI and police have no clue as to who put in touch Tony. Source said that Niranjan Jain, who is a contractor, has been taking up government projects and the foot-over-bridge, which is being constructed opposite Punjagutta Police Station, is one of his projects.
A police official, who had previously informed that a team of four officers are on the hunt to capture the remaining of the courier operatives and the customers, rejected the reports which suggested that they were arrested by the Mumbai police under different charges not related to drugs as just rumours.
A total of 108 grams of cocaine was seized from Imran and Noor. According to sources, a businessman paid over a lakh for one gram of cocaine obtained from Tony,
The investigators, meanwhile, revealed that Tony was fully cooperating with them and was answering their queries in fluent Hindi and English.
But the police were not able to get any information from Tony on involvement of another Nigerian and they were not sure if that “Star Boy”.